On a recent opportunity to chat with AI thought leader Toby Walsh, he shared that one of his concerns with the emergence of workable forms of the technology is the possibility of people losing the ability to think for themselves. While the jury is out on how many or even if the broader populace ever had this capability in the first instance, a recent high-profile example has lent some credence to Walsh's worry.

None other than Prince Harry came up short during a 'oh won't somebody please think of the children' speech highlighting the risks of AI. Since fate loves irony, the instant the perhaps AI-generated speech stopped transmitting to the teleprompter, the royal floundered and the lecture to the great and good at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in New York ended there and then. 

Given his inability to continue off the cuff, one wonders if Harry had read and understood the contents of 'his' presentation prior to giving it.

By contrast, while piloting an early orbital spaceflight in 1963, NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper used nothing more than a grease pencil, his eyes and a wristwatch to successfully time re-entry of his Mercury 9 space capsule, along with guidance from Ground Control.

Various factors had conspired against Cooper, including problems with the stabilisation and control systems caused by a short circuit.

Cooper marked crosshairs on the capsule windows with the pencil, visually lining up the trajectory for a successful re-entry using the stars as reference points. His humble wristwatch kept track of the rocket retroburn necessary to slow the craft to an appropriate re-entry speed.

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